~ Curious Charlie ~

MealPal Melbourne Launch @ Thursday, October 26, 2017

Charlie & Co. dined as guests.
Tuesday 29th Aug

Remember those days when you'd drop off your lunch orders at the cafeteria in the morning before class, or selected meals for the week if you were on a mealplan? Well you can relive those days but with plenty of variety through MealPal! Funny thing, it's two letters away from 'meal plan'. With MealPal you can order the night before (or that very morning before the 9am cut off) and look forwards to lunch, skipping the line!

We've heard of MealPal which is a new food app that gets you lunch for $8 (a pretty good deal, as I'd say without the app I can show you where to lunch for $10) already in NYC, London, it first came to Sydney, and now Melbourne. We were delighted to attend the launch the other night (as an event planner I rarely get invites, as the one with tickets).

These pictures are from the London//Soho Launches.

We didn't take pictures, and there aren't any up on fb...

It appears that all the parties across the cities in which MealPal launched were quite similar, with their picnic-esque red and white checkered tablecloths, in a warehouse setting.

In Melbourne this happened at a warehousey location on Flinders St, just a couple blocks from our office actually. Restaurants bought along their dishes for the crowd to sample (media + anyone who worked in the cbd was invited), giving us a chance to try a bit/e of everything.

It was very crowded, and dark (I like the dark, but not for photos) with no tables or chairs, so we couldn't take pictures of the setting. I'm not sure if London was crazy bright, but Melbourne wasn't anywhere near as bright. It was more like my food pics, but darker, as they've been edited.

There were around 30 restaurants that night, a mix of chains, not chains, big names and small. Popular places likes Belle's Hot Chicken, Belleville and Mr Burger to every day lunch spots that do salad/wraps like Bon, Famished, SpudBar. Then there are smaller places less known, like Purple Peanuts, Bruce Lee Sushi and Mason Dixon. Places in weekday food courts, that you wouldn't stumble upon. There was every cuisine except the hard to find ones in the city like Afghan and African. Something for everyone (unless you were vegan, in that case you'd know to go BYO already).

I personally didn't eat all this by the way, it was also Gin & Jas.

Charlie & Co - Mr Burger - Bruce Lee Sushi - Bell's Hot Chicken - Poked

Salads by Famish (big) + Nashi (sm)

Famished Salads, Gin loved and she tried them all (4). Highly recommended by her.

Masala Grill (?) - 70 Grams Pizza - Crisp - Pappa Rich

Famished - Mason Dixon

Mason Dixon - Pho n Roll - 1000 Watt

Our favourite dishes on the night included: Salads from Famish'd (gin), Bruce Lee Sushi (me), Fried Rice from 1000 Watt (Gin loved it, saying it was amazing, and she'd know) and anything from Belle's Hot Chicken (jas).

Super Taco offered lunch (or a midnight snack XD) for tomorrow, a selection of taco bowls. Of which I had the lamb. An example of what you could get for an $8 lunch. Our review's in the next post.

Roast Lamb with Chipotle BBQ Sauce & Pickled Red Cabbage Bowl

Charlie was offered a 3 day trial to review the service.

(We loved it and signed on for a month! Jas did too.)

How MealPal works is the night before the day you order, say Sunday night, you'd receive an email with the link to place your order. You've got a 15 minute window. No pressure. As someone who gets distracted and stops to smell the flowers that is a bit scary. Though essential, as you'd like the food to be hot.

It's a skip the line app but also makes lunch a cheap eat at $8. You'd still have to line up, or maybe some places have a line just for the app. It's a grab and go deal. But if it's food court you can sit down. From personal experience, some places (Belleville) aren't happy for you to eat in when you order through MealPal - but others (like Purple Peanuts) are cool with it.

I love that the picture of the food is the one you'd get rather than photo shopped version or the photo for the media with a truckload more toppings.

Ordering was pretty easy. The app kept doing auto scroll but that's probably just my phone.

Note - The desktop site is so much easier to use!

*not my screen grab*

So after you click the link to reserve your lunch it'll take you to a page like above. Where you can search by location, restaurant or cuisine. You can add places to your favourites list. There's also some filters, if you want a small/medium/large eat. There are healthy options and those that lean towards sometimes food (not a filter).

There is no filter if you're... vegetarian, vegan (BYO), dairy/gluten free. Though I think there should be a filter for gluten, dairy I feel would be in most dishes.

Melbourne CBD

With the 'search via location' you can zoom around on a map, if you zoom out more places will turn up on the menu list, zoom into an area and there's less.

Each restaurant has only one dish you can order - this changes almost every day!) But there's plenty of places, the perfect excuse to leave the desk.

We were offered a three day trial to review the service. On the first day we ordered a reuben from Mason Dixon on Collins, though the website. Jas prefers the app, you always have that option.

Mason Dixon - Veggie Reuben $8

Arriving at 12.05 I got there minutes before the crowds (pictured). Ordering from Mason Dixon is very easy as they use multiple apps: Deliveroo, Hungry Courier, Liven, Skip and Mealpal!

The 'Veggie Reuben' with roasted portabello mushrooms, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and tangy Russian dressing on toasted rye. It was good, though I'm not sure if I like sauerkraut - it's purely a personal thing. But all the textures, the soft meaty mushroom, swiss cheese, sourness of the sauerkraut and tangy dressing was delicious. It's also very filling.

And the trial we were sold! Both jas and I bought a subscription. He ended up dropping it due to time management skills, and not being about to thingy to a 15min window. We actually shared my subscription (12 meals, 30 days) as I freelance, so I'm not in the city everyday, of course you can only order one meal a day, so if you forget there's a bit of a rush towards to end to claim all 12 before it expires. But when I work office hours in the city I will definitely be getting this again.

Have you heard of MealPal?
How much do you normal spend on lunch?
Do you like to try new things just from your food court, or venture out?
And how long do you get for lunch? We get 20 mins at the office, 60 if it's chill.